John Ruskin Quotes
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It ought to be quite as natural and straightforward a matter for a labourer to take his pension from his parish, because he has deserved well of his parish, as for a man in higher rank to take his pension from his country, because he has deserved well of his country.
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He who offers God a second place offers Him no place.
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The only absolutely and unapproachably heroic element in the soldier's work seems to be-that he is paid little for it-and regularly.
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That which seems to be wealth may in verity be only the gilded index of far reaching ruin.
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Though nature is constantly beautiful, she does not exhibit her highest powers of beauty constantly, for then they would satiate us and pall upon our senses. It is necessary to their appreciation that they should be rarely shown. Her finest touches are things which must be watched for; her most perfect passages of beauty are the most evanescent.
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There are no laws by which we can write Iliads.
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No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.
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Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.
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You were made for enjoyment, and the world was filled with things which you will enjoy, unless you are too proud to be pleased with them, or too grasping to care for what you can not turn to other account than mere delight.
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Every good piece of art... involves first essentially the evidence of human skill, and the formation of an actually beautiful thing by it.
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When men do not love their hearth, nor reverence their thresholds, it is a sign that they have dishonoured both ... Our God is a house – hold God, as well as a heavenly one; He has an altar in every man's dwelling.
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Obedience is, indeed, founded on a kind of freedom, else it would become mere subjugation, but that freedom is only granted that obedience may be more perfect; and thus while a measure of license is necessary to exhibit the individual energies of things, the fairness and pleasantness and perfection of them all consist in their restraint.
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Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, the laws of death.
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Without seeking, truth cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold in packages ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by itself out of it such, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own.
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Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity.
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The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.
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The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.
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It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately.
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There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.
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All the best things and treasures of this world are not to be produced by each generation for itself; but we are all intended, not to carve our work in snow that will melt, but each and all of us to be continually rolling a great white gathering snow-ball, higher and higher, larger and larger, along the Alps of human power.
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When the whole world turns clown, and paints itself red with its own hearts blood instead of vermilion, it is something else than comic.
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The repose necessary to all beauty is repose, not of inanition, nor of luxury, nor of irresolution, but the repose of magnificent energy and being; in action, the calmness of trust and determination; in rest, the consciousness of duty accomplished and of victory won; and this repose and this felicity can take place as well in the midst of trial and tempest, as beside the waters of comfort.
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We are, after all, only trustees of the wealth we possess. Without the community and its resources... there would be little wealth for anyone.
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Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.